June 22nd, 2010

"The Talk" @ 09:26 pm

The boss called me in to have The Talk today. In particular, about my attitude. It seems my negative attitude has been noticed, and he's concerned. While I told him about some of the major contributing factors - that the work is completely different from what I'm used to, that I have difficulty gauging what my progress is or isn't and what's important or not, that my mentor and I are about the worst possible match, and that I'm acutely aware of how fallen behind I am compared to the rest of the team, I couldn't find a good way to casually drop in "Oh, yeah, and I've been in a major depressive episode since starting the job, with suicidal ideation for the past month." While I saved bursting into tears for after the meeting, I have no idea what kind of signals I was giving off.

I've given a serious amount of thought to up and quitting, breaking my lease, and moving back to the US somewhere. I have ten days of vacation in two weeks, though, which might ameliorate things a bit. When I get back, I'll be seven months into the job; maybe that would be enough to be able to transfer elsewhere within the company. I don't know. I'd really like to not dread going to work, to do something I enjoy, and to do something constructive rather than just babysitting a bunch of whiny programs of which I'm completely unqualified to do anything about. Not having daily thoughts of offing myself popping unbidden into my head would be nice, too. (At least they don't dominate my thinking like they did when I was living on Pastoria; as bad as this period has been for me, it's not the worst.)

Comments

There is little to no reason (that I know of) to keep yourself in a situation that's not working for you. I mean sure you could stick it out, but you could also leave and go somewhere you might be happier, and/or somewhere you have a support system. It's okay to cut your losses sometimes. Hugs for you.

if you're unhappy, then using the ELIFETOOSHORT handler to start looking for something that is a better situation. you've got far too much talent to let it be wasted in a single group or a single company that is not letting your skills grow and you to find your potential. considering the amount of change and shit that you've had to put up with in a short amount of time, you deserve a little off time to refresh and find a different change of pace.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out the path to see a psych over here; it looks like I may have to go through my GP first. What's super annoying is that the antidepressants I had been taking appear to have lost their effectiveness.

While I can't say I'm inured to what's going on, I suppose I'm used to it. In some ways, the harder part is getting over my "can't rely on others" issues.

I left your current employer 4 months ago because of how much my team was destroying me. I have a lot of opinions about the company but I do not regret either 3.5 years I spent there (except that it should have been shorter) or the time I have been spending recovering from working there. I would be more happy to offer opinions and contacts and modes of attack more privately.